Final Fantasy Record Keeper IX: Having Sworn to Whale, Must I Live My Life in Debt?

[Slayn82]

100 gem pull on Surf 1 gave me a Rainbow - Garnet's Divine Guardian. Unfortunately, I'be been duped yet again.

IX has surpassed X as my strongest realm in the last few pulls, and I can give a RS rod or staff for each character in a mage team, or a sword/spear for everyone a physical team, or use a RS team with everyone with their own Burst.

[Starwulf]

WooT!! Tougher battle fought and won!! I did the Jump Start battle. Went in with a "wind" team: Tyro(Curaja/Shellga, SG), Faris: Full Break, Magic Breakdown, USB, Fang: Skills didn't matter, 3x mega flare to lower bosses wind resistance even more, Freya, again skills didn't matter, used his BSB then spammed petal storm, and finally Cloud, who again, skills didn't matter, I had him RW Vessel of Fate, then once Mega Flare went off twice, he started using his OSB(Finishing Touch).

I literally Blitz-kreiged the fight, and it worked. No medals lost, no-one died, and fight was over in about a minute flat. Huzzah!!! Wind team ftw!

[Merlin the Tuna]

Blaaaaargh. I decided to forgo my pull on banner 4 in favor of FF6-1, and I was not rewarded for it. 1/11 with Mog SSB. Not a dupe, and not a bad item, but a little frustrated with how stingy the last week of pulls have been for me.

Then I remember the pre-G5 days and don't feel so bummed. But still, disappointing.

[Forbiddenwar]

It's my 3rd burst heal (others being Eiko & Aerith) but I personally place it lower then Eiko's (but still WAY and far above Aerith's) in a practical sense who can, for the most part, keep up healing my physical Ateam's damage thanks to the ludicrous amounts of mitigation it can bring to bare.

This is largely because I don't particularly mind getting hit a bit, as taking damage generates 1/10th of your SB meter, which stoneskin stops, and the 50% Crit chance Eiko's gives on top of the healing helps with piling a bit more damage. When you can bring 4x stacking Attack & Magic breaks, Wall & ProShellga, a boss's attacks can be healed through without too much problems.

Stoneskin also stops you from punching allies awake or from confusion, forcing you to bring Ultra Cure or Esuna on your party for those fights, likely Catwife, in addition to Proshellga, where I'd probably rather bring Wrath+Proshellga on her instead and just punch people awake.

Huh, I also have the Eiko bsb and Aerith, but find they don't work for me.

See, I don't have 4 different stacking breaks, I only have the full break and breakdowns, no soul breaks that stack debuff, so the extra healing is necessary. (well, I have Edward's bsb, but, you know, Edward)

And what healing ability do you take? I've just been using ultra cure every where I go after maxing the ranks on it. I'm working on Curada, but that's a pain to hone and it will take time. Do you have a maxed out Curada already?

At the same time, stoneskin gives my healer a break to throw down more mitigation instead of leaving the fighters to do it.

I also don't see much of a lose of soul break meters from stoneskin. Maybe because my A-team uses AceStriker and similar. Once someone has burst mode on, they never lose it.

But that's just my experience, and I suspect that it all goes back to: I don't have "4x stacking Attack & Magic breaks". Wow, how does your team manage that?

Meanwhile, the Eiko's critical hit boost is not a good trade for me. When most of my normal hits on bosses are for 9k+, I don't think I need to critical hit boost for an extra 400 damage.

[Red Fel]

So during the last Fest, they brought all five banners back at the end. Do they do that for all fests or was that an anomaly?

Got enough for 2 pulls, one of which is guaranteed on banner 5 (still no native wall). I'm thinking I'll wait till the end of fest and if they bring all the banners back, reassess then. If not, save the other pull for Cloud USB banner.

I think the last one was an anomaly. I don't think that they'll do it again this time, but I could be wrong. I wouldn't assume that they'll bring the banners back at the end, is my point.

[T.G. Oskar]

Since "I see my dame, I pull", I made an 11-pull on the FFVI Banner 2. The Random Number Gods must have thought Wrestlemania was today.

2/11, 1 dupe, 1 rainbow, 1 disco ball.

• Leo's Shock. The dupe, as I said.
• Sabin's Scorching Meteor Strike! It's another Overstrike (of which I have very little), on a character I barely use (have his Phantom Rush Physical Blink SSB, but Team VI is just too good to have him). On the other hand...

While I won't be using Sabin much, it does mean one thing. Phantom Train...

Spoiler: Welcome to Suplex City

Show

...B***H.

(Coincidentally, does any of you guys have WWF/WWE figurines? Lita, in particular? Maybe she's the key for me to get Terra's Ultra Soul Break...)

[Starwulf]

Any tips on Geryon for the Highway Dash? how often does he counter physical attacks with Cursed Elegy? It's U++, which makes me wary of it, and that whole "counters physical attacks" bit makes me wonder if I should even bother(because while I can field a mage team, I can't field one that has a large amount of non-elemental attacks since he resists everything by the end).

[T.G. Oskar]

Any tips on Geryon for the Highway Dash? how often does he counter physical attacks with Cursed Elegy? It's U++, which makes me wary of it, and that whole "counters physical attacks" bit makes me wonder if I should even bother(because while I can field a mage team, I can't field one that has a large amount of non-elemental attacks since he resists everything by the end).

It supposedly increases with each Phase, so by the end it gets pretty annoying. Summon spells don't activate Cursed Elegy as a counter, so that's that - do the element-weak phases with Summon spells. Ideally, anyone good enough with Lightning Imperil should be of aid (make that twice as good if you got Garnet's Burst 2, since it's Imperil Lightning and the commands are Summon, so you don't risk activating Cursed Elegy). You also need a Medica, period, and preferably Last Stand as well, because Geryon gets to use Maelstrom as a command after Weak Phase. Also - Geryon only uses a physical attack, so have someone with Draw Fire/Sentinel and worry more about Magic attacks. Inferno, Lightning and Tsunami hit for a LOT.

I still haven't defeated it, but my tactic has often taken him to Very Weak Phase - Edward for debuffs and Imperil Holy, Pally!Cecil for Shellga and the use of Onion Knight's Burst, Kain for that last stretch using Blood of the Wyvern and Dragoon Jump, Rosa for healing, and Golbez as the tank and the softener (using Quetzalcoatl and Leviathan). The problem lies in that anything can go wrong here - Gas hits four status effects, and generally ruins your runs by disabling most of your characters.

Question: do you have a way to use Affliction Break? Since that cuts the enemies' chance for status effects, and Geryon's chances are pretty low anyways, it helps in the long run against Cursed Elegy. That + Mind Breakdown means status effects stop becoming an issue. Haven't tried it (magic damage is annoying, and haven't made Affliction Break in the first place), but it should help on the long run. I could have probably beaten this already, but I really want to complete the CM, because Team IV has gotten a few buffs these last few days (Rosa's Burst, Edward's Burst).

Oh yeah - Orbfest is in Phase 2, and it's Fire, White and Dark. You know, the most sought-after Orb right now? I think I got lucky in that first run; got 2 Major Dark Orbs, aside from those you get from completing the quest (1st time, IIRC). Dark is usually the last set of orbs, so rejoice if you see a Rainbow sphere as the last set of the Orbs; that means you netted a MDO.

[Wayac]

I think the last one was an anomaly. I don't think that they'll do it again this time, but I could be wrong. I wouldn't assume that they'll bring the banners back at the end, is my point.

Ah, ok. Thanks for the info! Thinking of pulling on banner 3 along with 5 now.

The Fest banners have better USB/OSB/BSB to SSB ratio, correct? So is it better to spend 100 gem pulls on Fest banners since the quality will be better if you get lucky?

[oxybe]

I'm still kinda surprised the trainplex is not a bigger meme in the Japanese FF community, it's fricking brilliant. All we can do is pray for it to be the USB of our dreams.
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As a warning for people: the U, U++ and A+ fights are jerks.
All three seem to love status ailments.

Train just throws all them out there. Magic Master loves to silence and Chardanook will confuse you if you're not careful. I'm skipping the CM by virtue of "my FFVI SBs are largely **** and he just ignores most element".

Train was something I just powered through

Magic Master was taken out by mage team, slowly inching it's way through it's weaknesses that actually start Fire > Water > Poison > Holy. so if you're looking to meet all the medal requirements, you'll have to hit him at least 15 times. Note that if he doesn't absorb the element, he's immune to it. NE stuff like OK's Command 2 is fine though.

I tried Apoca+Chardanook and failed a few times. Will need to sit and ponder this fight.
--------------------------------------------------
JumpStart went far better.

So I setup my team to be largely confuse resistant, with Steiner being the only character without a confuse resistance relic

So here was the team:

Steiner 99 - nope, time to abuse weakness - Sword x1.3 - BSB
Auron 99 - nope, time to abuse weakness - Weakness x1.3 - BSB2
Refia 99 - nope, time to abuse weakness - Thrown x1.3 - BSB
Terra 80 - Chain Firaga, Alexander - Zeal - EnFire SSB
Catwife 99 - Magic Breakdown, Armour Breakdown - Gathering Storm - BSB, Wall, Proshellga
RW : Ramza - Shout

Yes Terra with a basic "start fight with haste" was basically there to force the switch to ghost face and then remove it's physical immunity and that's it. This was a physical party, but she did her job admirably, followed by shooting magic lasers at the boss.

And yes I used that awkward looking catwife setup, one that could only work on Jumpstart and oh gods it was so beautiful how dumb it actually worked really well.

The TGMODE:ON's quick casting let Catwife get her support SBs out at a breakneck pace, first Walling, then Healing with the stoneskin and finally applying proshellga&regen while under the watchful eye of the buble. The beauty of "start with 3 full SB bars", huh?

Regretfully I failed to meet the "reduce magic" condition as I had to heal up Steiner who got hit hard a few times in a row, but still managed to master with no other medals lost and stoneskin still up on all but Auron (who had just lost it) & Steiner at the end.

Catwife, you did the Jumpstart good. Refia, Auron your new BSBs have proven your worth. Great joerb, team.
-----------------------------

Ah, ok. Thanks for the info! Thinking of pulling on banner 3 along with 5 now.

The Fest banners have better USB/OSB/BSB to SSB ratio, correct? So is it better to spend 100 gem pulls on Fest banners since the quality will be better if you get lucky?

Generally yes. Fest banners tend to be condensed grouping of awesome if you're looking for a grabbag of relics. If you're looking to strengthen a particular realm, it's not as good. Plus if an awesome relic comes out on a weekly event, there is no guarantee it will be back in a fest banner.

EDIT: Bolded Magic Master's weakness cycle as a PSA. Don't drink Dr.Mog's KoolAid folks!

[Hunter Noventa]

Geryon U++ is a special kind of bullcrap that I don't even want to deal with, so I won't. That is just not fun at all.

Still debating a draw on the first Summer Banner. Only one Dupe, but most of the stuff is for characters I don't much care for. Of course, that could be said of all the banners except the ones that have a bunch of dupes.

[Red Fel]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the info! Thinking of pulling on banner 3 along with 5 now.

The Fest banners have better USB/OSB/BSB to SSB ratio, correct? So is it better to spend 100 gem pulls on Fest banners since the quality will be better if you get lucky?

Put it to you this way. Just by way of comparison:

• Banner 1 of Summer Festival, up now, has 4 USB/OSB relics, 6 BSB relics, and 2 SSB relics.
• Banner 2 of the VI event, also up now, has 1 OSB relic, 3 BSB relics, 2 LMRs, and 4 SSB relics.

Which is about average. So, yes, the Fest banners have a much higher BSB+ to SSB ratio. In an abstract sense, doing a 1-pull on a Fest banner, assuming you even get a relic, is more likely to produce a BSB+ result than doing a 1-pull on a non-Fest banner.

Ugh, these event bosses. I hate element-shifting bosses, I really do. Usually I just tap the one weakness I'm supposed to (generally Fire) and then launch a Non-Elemental assault. But that really, really doesn't work for this guy. Now, Celes' BSB covers two of his weaknesses (Holy and Fire), and Relm's BSB can also tap his Holy weakness, but for everything else I have to rely on ability uses. I also have Celes' Runic, which is nice, but it's Vanilla Runic, not Grand Cross, so that doesn't help me with Silence. I'll have to try a few party formations, but even if I go full mage, it's painfully slow going, because only one or two of them will be able to do anything on a given turn. As a general rule, I feel like any combat where half of your party has to sit doing nothing and wait for multiple rounds is not a cool gimmick, but a frustrating test.

So I took a break from that to try Chaos. I mean, I have o'Light's BSB and Matoya's BSB, those should help, right? Well, no. He resists everything, paradoxically including Holy, and resists it hard. I tried bringing an Imperil Holy BSB as an RW, and he still resisted Holy. So my big cannons are out, and I basically have to bring a PHY party. Which includes Garland, Wol, and Master, none of whom have SBs. At least my Sarah has her Hastega+medica, right? Well, yeah, except it's apparently a pretty crappy medica.

In short: Take a realm with a few powerful characters (e.g. o'Light, Matoya-ish) and a bunch of mostly worthless characters (Garland, Master, Wol), then take away the advantages of the former and force the player to deploy the latter. Yeah, I really don't see myself CMing that one.

I'm just going to go over to the Orbfest and rebuild my broken confidence for awhile...

[Deadline]

Did my planned pull on Banner #1 - 2 Rainbows, both Garnet's Divine Guardian, which I already had. So now it's at 8*. Kinda disappointing, considering that my pull on the 3rd LD got me Squall's BSB, and Paine's BSB. Here's hoping the next planned pull goes well (I believe it's on Banner #4).

[Merlin the Tuna]

Put it to you this way. Just by way of comparison:

• Banner 1 of Summer Festival, up now, has 4 USB/OSB relics, 6 BSB relics, and 2 SSB relics.
• Banner 2 of the VI event, also up now, has 1 OSB relic, 3 BSB relics, 2 LMRs, and 4 SSB relics.

Which is about average. So, yes, the Fest banners have a much higher BSB+ to SSB ratio. In an abstract sense, doing a 1-pull on a Fest banner, assuming you even get a relic, is more likely to produce a BSB+ result than doing a 1-pull on a non-Fest banner.

Flip side, fest banners tend to over-represent fan favorite characters and SBs. So they tend to be more prone to dupes than the average event banner, and potentially less useful if you'd prefer to have 1 SB for 3 characters rather than 3 SBs for 1.

BUT ANYWAY, FF6 event down except for the Raid battles. Fire-weak U++ and Apocalypse fights meant that Terra was the star of the day, with her en-Fire+OSB combo wrecking folks left and right. Special guest star status goes to Strago, who did serious work with Mighty Guard and helped out with medal conditions otherwise. For Chardanook in particular, I found it handy to double up on holy/fire loadouts: Strago carried Chain Firaga/Alexander, and Braska covered Meltdown/Diaga. Makes it a little easier to trigger the transition with a spare character. Jump Start continued the tradition of being massively easier than the normal fight, though shoutout to Gil's RM3 (haste+proshellga) for being a great tool for getting buffs online before the boss starts caving people's heads in.

How are the raid battles this time around? Looks like a job for spam-holy-SBs-but-not-abilities, which could be either really easy or really annoying.

[Greg_S]

Dark orb phase!

For reference, the following upcoming skills will use dark orbs as their primary orb type, meaning they take 60 to hone to R3:

• Necrofear (darkness): 3/4/5 hit dark magic depending on doom counter (5 hits is at 5 ticks left). Useful if you have en-dark, as it will then have the potency of dark zone over 3 hits.
• Soul Barrage (darkness): 3/4/5 hit dark physical depending on doom counter. Pretty good with en-dark too.
• Water Mirage (ninja): 1 hit water damage, self physical blink + enables blink stacking, so you can have up to 2 physical blinks on self.
• Torrent Seal (ninja): 2/3/4 hit water damage, extra hits depend on how many blinks you have, so water mirage x2 grants you max hits on this.
• Dire Weapon (darkness): Chain drain-strike.
• Shadow Mirage (ninja): 1 hit dark damage, self physical blink + enables blink stacking
• Dark Seal (ninja): 2/3/4 hit dark damage, extra hits depend on how many blinks you have
• Crimson Cross (darkness): 4 hit dark damage, 30% max HP kickback damage

These are all useful skills, and they sync quite well with upcoming USBs. Necrofear/soul barrage are good if you can boost dark, the ninja skills will hit for 6.00/4 (AoE SSB potency) if you're en-elemented and have two blinks, Dire weapon is good for tanky types, and Edge, Shadow, and Gaffgarion's USBs will turn them into damage machines with the ninja skills and crimson cross respectively. Skills are going to get a lot better, so plan your orbs wisely.

An aside on Gaffy's USB: it endarks and grants a chase mode for darkness skills, so every time you use a darkness skill, you follow it with dark might, a 1.8/2 draining strike. With endark + a single dark + gear, using crimson cross results in 6 hits at 10.23 potency every turn, and you should be healed for the kickback damage. A reminder, physical SSBs are around 8.0x potency.

EDIT: For the raid battles, bring non-elemental fallback! If he uses force field twice and nulls lightning/holy, that Thunder God OSB is doing a whopping 0 damage. The longer the fight goes, the more elements become worthless, so bring good backups like Vaan or Zell's bursts, and kick anyone with a holy BSB or Saint Cross.

[SuperPanda]

I haven't managed to CM chaos yet. I read a strategy on Reddit which calls for a old classic.

wol uses Retaliate. People gang up on him.

I'll try this eventually as WoL can magic lure and triple hit wol until his SB gauge is full where he can unleash an underwhelming ~ 25,000 damage OSB strike.
I'll need two healers and Echo dancing as well - so that's my party. Also I'll need to see if I can't find a Tyro USB for haste and Astra because that stop is nasty.

VI is cleared except for the multiplayer.

Over in orbfest Arc has finished leveling. Laguna is now at a 95 and will be parting with Areith before long. After him Reynn is my last triple broken person to level. I recently found I'd been sitting on a mountain of eggs and used a bunch (I had more than 2000 2* and 3* eggs - I brought both those down by ~ 600).

Chaos is the first Crisis boss I've considered giving up on the CM for. I walked away from Geryon until Rosa's USB dropped - then I went back and clobbered him.

In VI I found the Jump Start more annoying but much easier than the event fight. The JS fight took me forever to get a run where I could get my mitigation up (but then it died effortlessly). In the normal event run I could get my mitigation up far more easily but my damage took a lot longer to ramp up so I had to survive longer under its assault.

Once Reifa got her fists up (meteor crush, burst mode, bargain command, History's Truth) she was a one woman murder machine.

[Red Fel]

How are the raid battles this time around? Looks like a job for spam-holy-SBs-but-not-abilities, which could be either really easy or really annoying.

I found the first fight pretty easy with an all-melee team. Guy laughs at all elements except Holy, which is a trap - sure, he's weak to it, but you don't want to be on the receiving end of his counter. So I soloed him by bringing pure Non damage on my melees. Second fight basically requires MP, since his HP is so massive - you can mitigate easily enough, but lasting long enough to make a dent is a lot of labor on solo.

In VI I found the Jump Start more annoying but much easier than the event fight. The JS fight took me forever to get a run where I could get my mitigation up (but then it died effortlessly). In the normal event run I could get my mitigation up far more easily but my damage took a lot longer to ramp up so I had to survive longer under its assault.

I've noticed this as well. Since everyone starts at 0 ATB, the boss can easily kill somebody before you even have time to raise defenses, so a Haste RM or instant-cast USB for immediate mitigation is a big plus. Once the buffs go up, though, the boss is just a timing game - don't attack Goddess with anything but Holy, burn Demon to the ground, repeat.

[SuperPanda]

Magic Master was a pain - but not for normal reasons. Terra was carrying water and got silenced through the water phase. Locke's imperil fire meant that people could still lay in with fire abilities outside the fire phase so damage continued to flow but I missed water medals the first time around (he didn't live long enough to swing back to water). Second run mastered him.

I'm considering a pull on Reks-1. My XII synergy is showing its age with no real stand out damage options. One reason I hesitate is that Balthier once again gets a meh looking relic and I want him on my A team. Reks on the other hand has awesome looking stuff and he's likely replace either Balthier or Bach (or Ashe because I only have her northwain's glow). Fran has her reverse wall SB and full break to keep her relevant. While I want new XII toys, I'm not sure I want to pull here.

[Greg_S]

I'm considering a pull on Reks-1. My XII synergy is showing its age with no real stand out damage options. One reason I hesitate is that Balthier once again gets a meh looking relic and I want him on my A team. Reks on the other hand has awesome looking stuff and he's likely replace either Balthier or Bach (or Ashe because I only have her northwain's glow). Fran has her reverse wall SB and full break to keep her relevant. While I want new XII toys, I'm not sure I want to pull here.

I don't think there's been much of any new XII stuff to date after the upcoming event. Gabranth gets a USB in the next Dissidia event, and that's it. So if you want XII, it's this, LDs, and 30th fest banner 4, assuming they sort ours the same way they did for JP, where it was one banner per console generation. 30th fest banner 4 was pretty good anyway with Tidus and Shantotto's USBs. The XII content on 30th b4 was Vaan USB, Vaan, Balthier 2, Fran, Reks BSBs.

100-gem netted me Prishe's BSB. Time to hone Lifebane to R2 and make her a terror in JS battles.

[SuperPanda]

Prishe is awesome so gratz there.

I am drifting closer to a pull in XII. I did my gem for banner 2 and got nothing which is okay will me. Will pull be free shared SB sword out of the vault for XIV event a bit later.

Balthier BsB 2 looks like it could be a great imperil fire - but I'm unsure how well it would work in practice. I already have Locke's which adds debuff utility and Galuf's which adds healing utility. I will be honing machinist skills for Laguna though so Baltheir's LM could be very nice - too bad there are no machinist or shooter Fire skills yet.

Edit:
Reta meta still reigns! Chaos CM is down. wol with Retaliate, two healers, WoL drawing magic, and dancer Echo were able to bring down the original big bad with a wandering Tyro USB helping out.

[Hunter Noventa]

Well I gave the current Banner a pull, since I do like Tifa. Didn't get anything for her, I DID get Noctis' OSB sword though.

[Red Fel]

Well I gave the current Banner a pull, since I do like Tifa. Didn't get anything for her, I DID get Noctis' OSB sword though.

Grats!

Speaking of, 'dat Noctis event, am I right? Seriously, one classic, one elite, and his MC, MC2, and MC3, with eggs aplenty. Dude is 81 now, waiting to level up further.

In other news, cleared the Zenith boss for VI, that was actually fun. Unlike his VI event counterpart, he doesn't have an epic freakout when you hit him with Holy, which is good news for team "Celes, Edgar, and Relm make you regret your life choices." As for Chaos, even with the RetaMeta team everyone swears by, I wasn't bringing enough damage. Does he have two scripted Gaze attacks, or three? I ask, because Arbiter's Apocrypha took care of the first two, then the third comes along and my party dies horribly. I mastered him with a normal A-Team, but CM appears out of my reach. (Unless, I suppose, I RD Wol a bit, but Blank that, am I right?)

As an aside about Prishe, apparently her RM3 is a triple hit. Which in general play is worthless, but in RetaMeta is priceless. So, yeah, you can put that next to the double hit RMs from Josef, Lion, and Sazh, if you want; if you have Prishe's BSB (which is pretty solid), you might consider giving her one of your MC3s.

In still other news, as has been mentioned, in addition to Summer Banner 3: Electric Boogaloo, we have a XII event coming up later this week. The event features Reks, who enjoys hitting enemy vulnerabilities - he gets BLM 4, WHM 4, SPB 5, CMB 5, and KNT 3. He's an attacky-defendy-type. The event also features a new ability for SHPs, Icicle Shot - you can guess what it does. In terms of relics:

• Banner 1 features Vaan's USB (instant-cast random-target Steal ATK/RES, plus EX Mode: Sky Pirate gives your THF abilities a damage boost and instant-cast) and Penelo's USB (instant-cast medica, pBlink, HP Stock), BSBs for Reks, Balthier, and Basch, LMRs for Vaan (debuffs last longer) and Balthier (doublecast MCH), plus SSBs.
• Banner 2 features Fran's USB (Ice/Dark AoE with Imperil Ice and party Short Charge 2) and Vayne's OSB (Holy/Dark that deals either PHY or MAG damage, stat-based), BSBs for Fran, Vayne, and Larsa, LMRs for Fran (SUP abilities have a 30% chance to Stun) and Vayne (start with En-Dark), plus SSBs.

Admittedly, Vaan's USB is pretty potent, but keep in mind that his BSB commands are SUP, not THF, and thus don't benefit from Sky Pirate. So unless you're after that, or Reks relics, or LMRs, you're probably better off saving for the remaining Summer banners and/or Awakening Cloud.

Lastly, the newest mythril calendar is up, feel free to check it out.

[SuperPanda]

Re: Chaos

I think I'm the only one swearing by Retameta here (I found the advise on Reddit where many more swear by it and a great many other things).

I found that there are two scripted ultimate gaze attacks but there seems to be a chance of a third. I have only seen the third on a few runs in which I didn't bring a status blink so I can't tell you for sure what the trigger is. It could be that he uses it after X rounds or it could just be even RNG. (I tried killing him with Shout a few times before going Astra and about half of those got three slows - all of them ended with my death).

I did have Prishe's triple attack RM and WoL's OSB for a solid stat-stick to reta meta from. wol was hitting ~ 3k per hit with hot retaliates (so 6 k per double strike and 9k per triple). Could have been more but I forgot to change mind breakdown to armor breakdown. WoL's OSB did more despite having a weaker sword this time (I think it's because he had to tank a lot more hits this time). So it hit for about 30k on its two uses. It wasn't easy - just doable. Sarah did run out of Curajas and Matoya nearly ran out of ultra cure.

[Merlin the Tuna]

I managed the Chaos Cid Mission this morning with zero FF1 SBs, but didn't go the reta approach. Instead, I loaded Garland up with Death Throes R1 and Omega Drive R1, then let him call in an Invincible Blade (Celes BSB2) RW. The RW itself grants burst mode and an ATK/DEF buff, command 2 grants a stacking ATK/DEF bargain, and Death Throes provides a nice battle-long ATK buff. Put it all together, and he was hitting about 32k per Omega Drive while being immune to the stops. Sarah got the stop resist accessory to keep him alive, Wol and WOL covered breaks & banishing strike, and Echo brought Haste, Multi Break, and the shared Shellga SB Chocobo Suit from... was that second anniversary? Full medal mastery, huzzah.

[Forbiddenwar]

I have 2 weird accomplishments.

I have got everyone to 80+ or max level. There are a few core characters who don't have a Crystal 2 released yet, so they are stuck at 65, but everyone else, core included, Is at 80+. Why? Cause I wanted to? Why not?

Edit: actually I think it's because FFVIII, where the end of the game forced me to play every character in the final dungeon and boss. Now I convinced that ffrk is going to spring core only content at us at some point, and this time I will be ready.

I finished my notable soulbreaks spreadsheet just so I can start tracking. It turns out that I have Faris bow and Noel's fossil. I know that if they are coded under different numbers they stack, but where do I find the numbers? That huge spreadsheet in the first post?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...t?usp=drivesdk

[Red Fel]

I finished my notable soulbreaks spreadsheet just so I can start tracking. It turns out that I have Faris bow and Noel's fossil. I know that if they are coded under different numbers they stack, but where do I find the numbers? That huge spreadsheet in the first post?

Or MisterP's PDF, also linked in the first post. If you click on "Soul Breaks" in the table of contents, it takes you to a list of all soul breaks, organized by character name. There is a column labeled "ID," which contains an ID number. If the number is purple, it's a debuff; if it's green, a buff.

Noel's Flame Fossil has a 609 on Burst, and its commands are 603 and 601. Faris has several bows, but her BSB relic Artemis Bow has a 609 on Burst, and its commands are 601 and 603. Now, if you were talking about her SBs, her Aevis Killer is 608, and her Yoichi's Bow is 610.

The easy shorthand, although not always correct, is to look at what stats they modify. As a rule, things that modify the same stat or stats will usually carry the same ID. Faris' Burst and Noel's Burst both apply a Full Break (-ATK/DEF/MAG/RES), and therefore have the same ID. Each has a -MAG command, same ID, and a -ATK command, same ID. That's why unusual buff or debuff combinations are so prized - something that reduces, for example, ATK and RES is unusual, and likely to stack with a -ATK, a -ATK/MAG, and a -ATK/DEF/MAG/RES.

[huttj509]

The easy shorthand, although not always correct, is to look at what stats they modify. As a rule, things that modify the same stat or stats will usually carry the same ID. Faris' Burst and Noel's Burst both apply a Full Break (-ATK/DEF/MAG/RES), and therefore have the same ID. Each has a -MAG command, same ID, and a -ATK command, same ID. That's why unusual buff or debuff combinations are so prized - something that reduces, for example, ATK and RES is unusual, and likely to stack with a -ATK, a -ATK/MAG, and a -ATK/DEF/MAG/RES.

And a Pentabreak. Friend of mine got Faris' longcoat on the 3rd LD for the summer. Made me happy to throw in as a RW.

[Forbiddenwar]

And a Pentabreak. Friend of mine got Faris' longcoat on the 3rd LD for the summer. Made me happy to throw in as a RW.

Yeah, I remember throwing something like 300 mithril at the banner it was released on trying to get pentabreak. No luck though.

So, like I said earlier, since I don't have any stacking breaks, I have to use Asylum.

[SuperPanda]

Took down MP fiend AP earlier today but only got an expert (no one had an attack down). Not sure how hard I'll work trying to master it as 4* Dex does not appear to be a high demand mote.

Haven't tried BFA yet, am tenatively confident in a CM with support lucky' wakka burst boosting my debuff potential there and a strong set of mage synergy and a Paine burst.

Likely to have wakka (burst), Lulu (focus), Paine (Burst), Yuna (Burst2) and Braska (shared Medica rod) for some very solid healing and solid mage boosts.

Leaning more heavily to pull on Reks 1. I will laugh and cry if all I get is Penelo USB (Penelo is the one XII character I don't feel a need to pull on even if her USB is very good. She's on a few of my A teams so it would even be a useful upgrade - it's just that she's the one character on the banner I'm not pulling for this time).

Edit: BFA down - recent lucky draws giving me wakka and Paine bursts plus a lucky 100 gem last X good bing me a sword (Jecht SSB) really boosted this team's potential).

[Maryring]

I am so torn on if I should do a pull on the VI banner. I have two dupes on it, but I have fallen so totally in love with Love Serenade ('m not crying. Honest) and Celes BSB2. I don't strictly need anything though. I've already got her BSB1 and her Indo-blade.